The Taste of Iron
by rachellephant
Summary: Blaine curls his fingers into a fist, feeling the weight of sixteen years' abuse in his palm. He wants to hit something. He's wanted to hit something since the first time he GOT hit. Dalton Fight Club fanfic; Blainecentric; wip; pairings tbd.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: FINALLY PUBLISHING THIS. I am pumped tbh. It's going to be good guys, I promise. HOWEVER I am looking for a beta. If you're interested, PM me.

Disclaimers: I don't own Glee or Fight Club, and all the rules are copied verbetim from that scene in the movie where Tyler says them to the Club (except, of course, the addition of "blazers" onto number six ;)). Triggers may include violence, language, and (in the following chapters) self-harm and gay bashing. This chapter functions as sort of a prologue.

As always, enjoy.

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**Chapter One**

The first rule of the Dalton Fight Club is that you do not talk about the Dalton Fight Club.

Blaine feels the tension in his arms ripple as he hurls his fist at the other boy across from him, his knuckles cutting sharply into his solar plexus. The boy goes stumbling back, taking a few extra steps so he can have some time to regain his strength in the midst of the crowd that surrounds him before he tosses himself back at Blaine, roaring like a lion. But Blaine is faster.

The second rule of the Dalton Fight Club is that you do not talk about the Dalton Fight Club.

He might be someone that Blaine has class with tomorrow. He might be a freshman that Blaine's never seen before and that he'll never see again. He might be on the fencing team with Nick, or the lacrosse team with Sebastian. He might _be_ Nick or Sebastian. Blaine wouldn't know. He can't see past the blurred red of his eyes. He doesn't _view_ the situation as he normally would—he senses it. Feels it. Hot and wet, like vomit, like blood.

The third rule of the Dalton Fight Club is: if someone yells stop, the fight is over.

There's something alluring about a boy who's as unhinged as Blaine is during a fight. Everyone wants to fight him. Everyone's frightened to. He's five foot seven and oozes aggression. It pours out of him. No, that implies control, like he could stop pouring whenever he wants to, cap it back up, and save it in his bag for later—but the truth is, he can't, not right now, not heated up to his temples with the raw, hot breath of adrenaline setting fire to his insides. He's spilled, tipped over, and now his aggression is more than oozing; it's flowing, overwhelming, thick and unstoppable. It'll dry up eventually. But right now, as he buries his elbow in the freshman's jaw, it is very, _very_ much alive.

The fourth rule: only two guys to a fight. The fifth rule: one fight at a time.

The first time he fought wasn't the first night of Fight Club. It wasn't when he first punched Sebastian in the parking lot behind Scandals. It wasn't even when he first took up boxing. It was when he was alone, and cold, and just wanted to get home. It took place at around 9:30 in the alleyway that served as a short cut from his old school to his house. There were five of them on him and his date, surrounding him, calling him shit he'd never even heard before and kicking him in the gut, in the balls, in the nose, in the back. The other boy was hurt too, but when they were dragged by police to the hospital, they told him he got it the worst. He always got everything the worst. He threw no punches, but that was his first fight.

The sixth rule: no shirts, no shoes, no blazers.

Someone's shouting at him. He doesn't care who. Have they started to make bets now? No, Fight Club isn't like that. Sebastian wouldn't let that happen. Blaine sees the muscle ripple in the other boy's bare shoulder before the punch happens; he ducks and goes to elbow him in the middle but before he makes the move he feels the knee to his side. Something cracks. He howls in pain.

The seventh rule: fights will go on as long as they have to.

There's never been a moment in his life when he wasn't fighting. Before Fight Club is a blur. In a lot of ways Blaine thinks that's because there _is_ no "before"; maybe there will be no "after." Fight Club isn't just fighting anymore; it's not just releasing aggression, not just exhausting himself so he can finally sleep, not just feeding his dead flame of a life so that it can keep on burning like the doctors tell him it should—Fight Club is everything. Fight Club is what keeps them going. Fight Club will go on as long as it has to, like his life will go on, like this fight will go on, like everything keeps going the fuck on.

And the eighth and final rule: If this is your first night at fight club—

Blaine can taste the sweat on his upper lip, can feel the pounding in his blood, and the roaring of the crowd that surrounds him has been turned down to a dull murmur as the only thing real, alive, or breathing is him, the other boy, and their fists.

—_you have to fight_.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: TRIGGER WARNING for self-harm, gay-bashing, beating, and mild child abuse. Yeaaaaah, sounds like a shitload, right? Skip to the end if you want a synopsis of this chapter without actually having to read it in all its gruesome glory. (This is mostly flashback anyways.)

Enjoy!

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**Chapter Two**

On his first day at Dalton, Blaine had felt the eyes on him.

Eyes from all over, from many different people, but when he turns to look they are on their sheet music or on their hands fiddling in their laps. It's paranoia, probably; his mother (who pretends she's good at understanding him, sometimes) guessed that with his transfer would come uneasiness around other people, and the culture shock that comes with going from public school to private school overnight. But Blaine doesn't feel unsafe, at least not physically anymore—he's just uneasy.

So he keeps his two first fingers pressed just on the inside of his shirt sleeve and runs his nails dryly across his wrist, just playing with pressure and speed until he gets that little inkling of a feeling. A taste. It's all he needs for now. He can see that his pencil pouch has opened up in his bag and he pulls out a pen and goes back to his sheet music, annotating where necessary, thinking warily of what the pen would feel like against his skin, the same as his nail just was.

This whole business started with a pen, anyways.

Blaine doesn't know when it began exactly, just that it started with a pen. A regular blue ballpoint Papermate, with the edge of the cap chewed almost off. Blaine was always very careful not to lose pens back in eighth grade—so much of his stuff got stolen when he looked the other direction he started just keeping them in his pocket with his phone.

Anyways, it started with this very normal, very average, but very sturdy blue pen. Blaine always preferred writing in pen because it's permanent, reliable, consistent, not like writing in pencil—the led size could change depending on sharpening, the led broke, the erasers didn't always work. Pens were the only honest thing in the whole world. People lied everywhere. Blaine has seen it, lived it, felt it hit him like a regular punch in the stomach, but longer lasting, leaving a bigger but somehow less-visible bruise. He'd seen it in kids when they wanted something from someone, when they wanted something from him; he'd seen it in teachers when they pretended to like the students they would never fully understand; he'd seen it in his father as his father looked at him at age twelve and told him he loved him, and he'd seen it in the same man as he slapped him on the back of the head at age fifteen and asked him what the hell was wrong with him. Blaine has seen liars and lying everywhere.

So one day, craving what little honesty was left in the world, he grabbed this pen out of his backpack and started to draw on his arm.

The only thing he remembers about this moment is that someone else had written in the same blue pen upon his flesh—a different pen, not his pen, but still in the ink of blistering, ugly truth—the word "fag." And Blaine instinctively knew, as all young boys like him instinctively know, that being branded with that was a death sentence. So he colored over it.

He made the "F" into a domino, with four dots in each box. Even numbers. That was good. Then he made the "A" a colored-in triangle, and then a Christmas tree. He made the "G" into a smiling sun. And nobody bothered him as he was drawing in this blue pen. Nobody talked to him or tried to question what he was doing. People had stopped questioning him by then. They just laughed at him now. He would be lying if he said he could block it out. But the pen seemed to help.

He felt the point press on his flesh and tickle and itch as he drug it across his skin, making rough lines on his arm. It felt good. It felt like he was feeling something—something other than the spitballs that got stuck in his hair and the subtle shoves into the lockers and the snickers that followed him like sharp-beaked predators, the stabs from their attacks still stinging hours later.

After a while of scribbling on his own forearm, Blaine stopped, feeling like he'd had enough. Like he'd managed to scribble over everything anyone had ever said or done to him. The word "fag" was now indecipherable beneath his masterpiece of erratic scrawls.

He kept the pen close after that. And in class if something happened, Blaine would pull it out and draw on himself. It usually started on his inner forearm, carrying up and around on the top of his wrist and the bottom, a weird thin bracelet of ink that pooled into the middle of his palm like blue blood. He drew on himself when people laughed at his questions in class. He drew on himself when they stole his backpack and dumped out his papers in the little school fountain. He drew on himself when they tipped the chocolate milk in his lunch over onto the table and into his lap. He drew on himself whenever he got a moment alone and could uncap the pen and do swirls, do lines, draw forests, draw cities. He drew everything. It was never a work of art; it was a work of patient agony, of pent up aggression, and of a certain dull grief that he felt linger over him like a headache. He let his hand go freely, take whatever shape it pleased, so when his arms came away they were both doused in roads of ink from elbow to wrist.

His dad was mad.

His dad was always mad. But his dad was angrier when Blaine came home with pen marks up and down his arms. Still, it was better than reading the things people wrote on him—"fag," "gay," obscene drawings, the like. And even when people weren't writing on him, it was better than sitting there and acquiescently enduring whatever they were saying to him this time. So he focused on the drawings. He never moved to paper. He would have, maybe, if it didn't feel so absolutely _necessary_ to his sanity that he continue pressing the point of the pen into his skin, cutting it across the soft underbelly of his upper-forearm, just to feel something that sort of helped.

He didn't know how it helped. In a weird way, it calmed him. And when he looked back at the pen marks on his wrists, his arms, his knees (when he wore shorts), he would know by the number of tallies and crosses whether or not he had been sufficiently calmed today.

Still, he began wearing long sleeves and jeans every day. He always looked presentable, if a bit warm in the summer months. Teachers who didn't know yet of his situation doted on him for being punctual, for always doing homework, for never being distracted in class even when he was drawing on his arms. (They never mentioned that last one, though—Blaine figured nobody wanted to mention that. It was too odd, so they did what all people do with all unprecedented oddness—they pushed it away.) The other students were not as accommodating. Then again, they had never been.

His dad didn't hit him until March of that year.

Blaine had been using so many pens he was going to get ink poisoning. That's what his doctor told him. But it wasn't the ink that he liked on his arm, or the different colors he sometimes got—it was the feeling of something damaging something that was once so smooth. It felt like whenever he came home to his father and he'd tell him what a fuckup he was (although not in so many words, and mostly with grievous stares or the way he'd talk incessantly about Cooper to him)—it felt like that, but sweet, like at least this catastrophe had a reason and, when he washed it off, an end. It didn't make any sense. But it was what it was, and Blaine needed it.

Even with the warnings, the doctor couldn't get him to stop. And then he came home one day, his arms covered to the elbows in pen marks—tallies for every time someone called him a name, little crisscrossing roads for every time he was pushed into the lockers—and his dad just _hit_ him.

Right across the back of the head, sharply. It was the only time he'd ever hit him since childhood spanking, but it was enough. Blaine started using inkless things instead.

The teasing didn't go away—he had already done too much damage with the pens, and with being gay, and with dressing too nicely, and with being too… wrong, in whatever way he was wrong. But he would carry a dull-sharp thing around, perhaps the cap of one of his loved and worn-out pens, and just carve things into his arm like that. The designs never lasted. They would stay there for a moment, white-hot, burning in a good way, and then they would sink away, leaving red marks in their place that would fade in an hour. It was a good switch. No more threat of ink poisoning, no more hitting from his dad. He could stomach the teasing as long as he had something sharp enough to give him that good solid _sting_ at all times.

Then one day, he cut himself.

It was a proper accident. At first Blaine didn't notice. It hadn't hurt all that much more than a particularly rough scrape across his arm with whatever material he had chosen to use—that day, he remembers, it was a dulled down piece of broken glass, probably still just sharp enough to perforate the skin. When he looked down and saw the blood dripping down his arm, he hustled to the bathroom, skipping homeroom to try and get the scarlet out of his sweater (his dad still gave him another verbal beating for the stains and asked him if he was _trying_ to make them waste money that could just as easily go to Cooper's college fund on new clothes for him).

He went to the nurse and got a bandage, lying and saying he tripped.

Blaine didn't purposely try to cut himself after that. It just happened. First once, then twice, then several times a day, and pretty soon he couldn't feel normal—feel good, feel safe, feel at ease—without it. They were small cuts that faded in a few days, but after a while he realized he couldn't keep doing this at school (the nurse would only believe so many excuses), so he switched to just at home. He had to dig his nails into his forearms to keep himself from breaking down at school sometimes, but when he was alone, it was worth it.

For the first five months of his high school life, this was the cycle. Endure school. Come home. Do homework. Cut. It was dismal, but then again, Blaine hadn't ever really known anything else.

When November strolled in, riding on the back of its chilly winds, the Sadie Hawkin's dance was announced for his school's winter formal. Blaine kept to himself, mostly, focusing hard at school and trying to lock out his classmates—but there was one other openly gay kid at his school and so he just… asked him. With little thought, little effort, and little time to wish he hadn't, and the other boy—Alex—said yes.

So, the day after school got out for winter break, they went. They dressed up, they danced a little (not much, they were both embarrassed), and then they walked back to Blaine's house to get his parents to drive Alex home. Blaine thought he knew a short cut, but he was wrong; in the second it took him to turn down the wrong street, five boys had cornered he and Alex and had begun to shout obscene things at him. Blaine ached for a pen, a sharp something, anything to dig into his forearm that might release the tension and calm him down but before he knew what was happening he had gotten hit.

Blaine's been shoved before. Punched, even. He doesn't like to punch back, but there was no option for him in this scenario. He lost sight of Alex somewhere after the third punch; he felt his eye swell up; he felt his stomach twist; he felt his hair be wrenched; he felt his lip break, and he tasted the blood, like iron, dripping into his mouth and down his throat.

It lasted for several minutes, him and Alex lying on the ground, howling and moaning in pain. With each noise they made, one of the surrounding boys kicked harder, punched harder, clawed harder. Blaine endured physical pain all the time. He had to. Somewhere he registered that he needed it to combat the emotional pain going on in his life. But he didn't need it like this.

Yet still, that was how he got it: over and over again, in the face, the stomach, the back, the legs. Dirt lodged itself in his eyes. He felt his fingers break as they kicked his hands. One of his knees felt like it had been screwed on the wrong way. Something heavy lie in his chest—his heart, maybe, deflated, desolate, and dead.

He woke up in the hospital three days later. He never saw Alex again.

And then he transferred to Dalton.

It was a huge flurry of screaming and crying and confessing, because upon the night of his return home from the hospital, his mom had walked in on him in the bathroom with a rapidly reddening towel pressed to his wrist. Eventually, sniveling, with snot dribbling onto his upper lip, he told her everything, all the way back to the blithering honesty of the blue ink. She sat him down on the couch and made him tea as his dad stood, stone faced and arms crossed, by the kitchen table. Cooper, strong-jawed, soft-haired Cooper sat behind him, home from college for winter break, staring wordlessly at Blaine as if he just didn't know how to deal with him.

Cooper was a junior that year. Blaine didn't see him very often because he went to school in the next state over, so it wasn't Cooper's fault that he didn't know. Still, he expected Dad to demand where Cooper had been during all of this, as if by the sheer force of their brotherly connection he should have been stricken with awareness of Blaine's regressed self-esteem and mental health months before it almost pushed him over the edge.

He didn't.

Really, his mom did all the talking. She talked at them rather than to them—talked at Dad, screaming that Blaine needed to be safe, needed to talk to counselors, needed to transfer, needed _something_ to happen; talked at Blaine, whispering hysterically that he needed to just _tell_ her things, needed to stick _up _for himself, and didn't he want to be fixed?; talked at Cooper, confusedly bringing up how _he _was never like this and she couldn't figure out what they did wrong in parenting between the two boys. The entire time she spoke, the two other men were silent, his father unabashedly austere, looking down upon Blaine as if he didn't recognize him.

(The truth is that he had never recognized him, and the even sadder truth is that he never would.)

And yet even when Mr. Anderson grunted in approval or dismay toward his wife's hysterical shrieks, Cooper simply sat there, taciturn and clenched, head down, eyes fixed on Blaine—rather, on Blaine's arm. He held no shame for his own actions (or lack thereof). He seemed to be, as he looked his little brother up and down and tightened his thin lips and sucked his cheeks, scared of him.

Mom handled the decisions from there. She'd heard of Dalton from a friend of a friend and knew it was safe. Blaine wonders often if anything Mom ever does in the future will ever compare to what she did for him then. Mrs. Anderson was never a strong person in any sense of the word, but something must have pounded through whatever walls she put up for the sake of her husband, her marriage, and her family's reputation, because that day and in the month after, she sacrificed all of what she had established and attacked the school board, attacked her husband for tuition, and attacked Dalton to let her baby in. A fierce machine of maternal instinct and blind grief and fury, Andrea Anderson had Blaine transferred by the new term.

What happened then blurs every time he tries to remember it. The only thing he concretely remembers was fighting to not see a therapist; he didn't want to be _fixed_ because he didn't want to think he was broken. It turned out to be a good thing that he didn't—Dalton served as a therapist for him.

It started with the Warblers. Singing had never been something Blaine even _thought_ of before them. He liked to do it, sure, but who didn't like to sing? Blaine didn't realize he was good—really, properly good at something—until he joined. It didn't go over too well with his dad, even though Cooper had been part of the theater program in _his_ high school and they supported _him _(Blaine shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot when he tried to tell him, silenced by his gaze, but Mom begged him, implored him to understand, and she said it would be okay if he never even went to one of his competitions just please let him do this one thing to make him "better"). Perhaps it was because Cooper also did sports, also got involved in ASB, also dated girls, and also had friends. Blaine just wanted to be very small, to disappear, because being noticed for him meant being attacked. Maybe his father didn't like that he was scared.

Cooper said very little; they carried on the rest of the year hardly speaking to each other. That had always been the way with them, though—Cooper was older, had a girlfriend, had friends, had plays, had college, had a future. And he was too busy with this future to pay attention to his little brother. On some strange, subconscious level, Blaine understood that. He understood Cooper's need for success, the drive that he fulfilled with his muscled arms and strong bone structure and masculine jaw line and smile that he needed to fill whatever template of a perfect son Dad had set for him. Blaine knew that it was hard for Cooper, to be so sublime, so he didn't say anything to bother him and never called him just in case it would interrupt something more important.

His family rarely came to his performances. His mother drove him to every one before he got a car and a license, but he assured her she needn't come inside to watch. "I don't want to trouble you," he would say, and she would nod and drive home because Dad was expecting dinner and he would sing his heart out on a stage that was _his_ and his alone—a stage defined and amplified by his talent as everything else in his life seemed to be defined and diminished by his mistakes. And he would look at all of the smiling faces that didn't belong to him and wonder if family meant blood relatives or just meant the boys that patted him on the back after a solo and said the refreshing phrase "Good job, Blaine," and picked him up on the shoulders when they won Sectionals for the first time that year.

That was when he stopped cutting. He supposes now that it couldn't have been that overnight. But he remembers so clearly the adrenaline, the feeling that was _feeling_ something like that. And then, after he had felt that, he didn't need to the steady scratching of a pen or a piece of glass or his nails or a knife against his arm. He didn't need to do that, anymore—all he needed to do was sing.

So—despite his father's disappointment, his mother's quiet worry, his brother's awkward silence, his town's cold and universal disdain for who and what he was—he did.

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A/N: Synopsis: Blaine got into cutting around the time he got into high school. After the beating he took from bullies during the Sadie Hawkins' Dance, his mother transferred him to Dalton. His father remains apathetic and uninvolved, consistently preferring Cooper—multifaceted, successful, intelligent-college-student Cooper—to Blaine. Cooper, similarly, remains distant, almost scared of Blaine and what is happening to him. Blaine gets into the Warblers at Dalton and finds a ~home. Yay.

This is just setting up the Need To Knows for how Blaine starts fight club, which comes either in the next chapter or the one following. But think of his cutting like the Fight Club Narrator's insomnia—that thing that he needs something to overcome. (Hint: the Warblers are his support groups.)

As always, R&R!


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: For the lone reviewer (whaddup AshtrayTradgedyM.D!) who asked me if I would carry this fic all the way until Blaine meets Kurt, this chapter is your answer. Kurt is in no way absent from this fic—in fact, he's a huge part of it.

(Also, we're just going to ignore that Nick sounds waaaay Californian in this. Shh.)

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**Chapter Three**

The morning when everything starts to crumble, Blaine wakes up late.

He's in the middle of a dream, rolling around on his bed, tangling his feet in the covers and feeling trapped and confined. A nightmare reminiscent of The Night, over a year ago. Everything's dark. There are five boys on top of him. Somewhere, someone is screaming. Maybe it's him. He's bleeding from his eyes, or a cut above his eyes, or something. It drips into his mouth. His insides have rearranged themselves and his intestines have tangled around his lungs and tied them together, and now all that's working is his heart, pounding furiously, frightened, beating quickly and crookedly, trying desperately to leap out of its cavity, screaming a glitched wail that comes out in his own voice, from his own mouth, his saliva a bloody spray on his lips—

He jerks awake, sitting erect and holding his heart and panting.

He should take the dream as a sign, but he doesn't; instead he throws off the covers as soon as he has his bearings and rushes to his wardrobe, putting on the same slacks he wore yesterday and shimmying into a new blazer, blinking away the blurry image of his attackers and cursing himself silently because he's late for the Warblers performance they have scheduled today.

Blaine's got his own room; that's just how it happened, since his old roommate moved last semester. He keeps it uncommonly clean for somebody with nobody to share it with. As such, it's easy to find his gel quickly, run a handful through his hair, take a breath mint instead of brushing his teeth, and dash out the door with no one to make excuses to.

Comb in hand and mint between his teeth, Blaine hustles down the stairs as the first break bell of the day rings, combing the extra gel through his hair like some sort of modern greaser in a blue blazer. People wave at him and he nods, slipping in and out of groups of people easily. It's been a year since he transferred, but he's never felt more comfortable anywhere—well, except maybe Warblers practice. Which is why he got up this fine Saturday morning. And why he's even running through the halls. Because they have an impromptu, flash-mob-style performance in the senior commons and _he has the solo_.

"Yo, Blaine."

"Hey Nick—why aren't you downstairs?"

"Not like I'm important there, man. Just you."

Blaine smiles gratefully. "You're so close to getting a solo. Skipping performances isn't going to help you."

Nick grins at him toothily, showing off his canines as he swipes his hair out of his face. He picks up his pace to walk with Blaine.

"You're right. How is it you manage to be so chill all the time, dude? You're, like, one hundred and twelve percent rainbows and sunshine and sweetness."

"I'm not that nice, I can be mean," Blaine says almost defensively. A crowd is bunched up in the middle of the staircase, and they have to wait for a moment until the group of twittering juniors dissipates.

"Sure you can," Nick rolls his eyes, taking the first step around the group. "I know you did boxing lessons over the summer and all that, but punching a bag is not the same as punching a person, and not when it's in self defense."

"Why would you ever _want_ to punch a person?"

Nick laughs. Somehow Blaine seems to have made his point for him.

They go down the stairs in silence, Nick's shaggy-haired head bobbing with each step in front of Blaine. They reach the base and they're almost to the commons, right on time, when a small, high voice rises above the murmur of the hallway.

"Excuse me."

Blaine's trained to turn at those words. Behind him stands a tall, lean boy with a young face and large eyes, staring brightly at him from out of the cascade of Dalton blazers. Blaine stops short, but not before he sees Nick's expression light up in a satisfied, convivial grin.

"One hundred and twelve percent rainbow," he says under his breath, and continues on, putting his hands in his pockets and whistling the opening chords to Teenage Dream, leaving Blaine with this new boy, minutes before his flashmob performance with the Warblers is about to begin.

"Um, hi," says the boy, gripping the railing with his left hand and the strap of his bag with his right. "Can I ask you a question? I'm—I'm new here."

For a second manners are forgotten, and the two just stare at each other.

New kid. Okay. Dalton doesn't get many new kids this time of year; what Blaine did, transferring in the middle of his freshman year, that was the radical thing. He blinks several times at his auburn-haired, doe-eyed buck and is reminded inexplicably of the first time he came to Dalton—terrified, alone, and still with the fading injuries of getting beat up in an alley by his old school. And while this boy doesn't look as scared or as small or as helpless, Blaine can see something similar reflected in there, something flashing behind this kid's eyes, like the blinding lights in a deer's pupils before the car hits it. He's been through something. He needs someone to drag him off the road and help him back on his wobbly feet.

He holds out his hand in peaceful offering. "My name's Blaine."

The boy takes it. "Kurt."

Kurt. Hmm.

"So what exactly is going on?"

Blaine has to smile. Even if he is late for his performance, this is going to be good.

"The Warblers. Every now and again they throw an impromptu performance in the senior commons. It tends to shut the school down for a while."

A sense of importance swells in him; this is why he's in the Warblers, anyways, because they're revered. Because he loves to sing, because he loves to perform, because he loves to be important in something. It's much more complicated than a superiority complex and much more simple than a hobby.

"So… the glee club here is… kind of cool?" Kurt asks tentatively, peeking down the hallway where the flow of students collectivizes.

"The Warblers are like rockstars."

And he _really_ has to go now. As in, now. As in, he's got to get this kid in there if he's even going to make it on time.

"C'mon," he says, seizing the closest part of Kurt to him—his hand—and dragging him off the steps. "I know a short cut."

He leads them through the south hallway, where people aren't filing. It's actually a longer way around, but there are so few people in there that when they enter the senior commons through the back door, people are still crowding at the front attempting to get in. Relieved that he's finally here on time, Blaine drops Kurt's hand and his bag and has almost turned away when he hears Kurt squeak, "I stick out like a sore thumb."

His doe eyes travel everywhere around the room, as if they can't get enough of what they're seeing. Both hands wring his bag strap.

"Next time don't forget your jacket, new kid," he says, reaching up and straightening Kurt's collar. There are no sparks, or shocks, or breathtakingly accidental skin-on-skin touching that sends them both into a hazed, love-struck spiral. That stuff only happened in the movies. This was real life, where people got hurt and bad things happened and gay kids transferred to Dalton.

He smoothes Kurt's lapel over his shoulder and grips it for just a second. No sparks. No sharp intakes of breath. But something happens. Something, somewhere, deep inside him that he won't realize until he's laying in bed that night staring up at his ceiling, bemused as to why exactly Kurt's presence makes his blood pressure rise.

"You'll fit right in."

He turns back to the Warblers and lines up to sing Teenage Dream. He's been working on it for about a week now, devoting blood, sweat, and tears to this song, because even though he fits in, he still thinks he has everything to prove. And somehow he can't stop noticing Kurt, standing there, enthralled and enraptured by the excitement in the room, swept up in the incredible sense of belonging that comes with being in or around the Warblers.

It bothers him.

Or maybe it doesn't.

That, he'll come to find, is the _thing_ with Kurt: everything he does has Blaine on edge, somewhere between bothered and not bothered, angry and not angry, excited and deadpan. He can't understand and something about Kurt tells Blaine that even though he doesn't want to involve himself, he has no choice.

He doesn't sing as well as he normally does although people tell him otherwise. Nick winks at him a few times, but he's got the wrong idea. This isn't cute, or charming, or him attempting to woo Kurt. This is confusing, and strange, and full of feelings that Blaine hasn't felt in a long, long time, including, but not limited to, affection. Because Blaine's a helpful person, it's second nature to him to reach out to the weak and unguarded and help them to their feet. Second nature for him to drag a wounded deer off the road and nurse it back to health. Second nature of him to reach out to this new kid, straighten his lapel, and walk him through whatever hurt he's feeling.

Second nature.

As he sings to—oh, let's face it—as he sings to Kurt, he wonders, as a forbidden feeling boils in his stomach, what his first nature must be if that is just his second.

ooo

What happens afterwards is a blur. The feeling he gets from Kurt lingers all over him, sticky, salty, sweaty on his arms and back and legs. It makes him shiver.

He talks to Kurt. He tells him about his past. He grits his teeth as he talks about running away. And when he goes with Kurt to his school—a public school in Lima that makes him itch all over with memories—he sees the boy who has been bullying him. Dave, is that his name? He tries to talk but the next thing Blaine knows he's being shoved against the fence with this gorilla of a boy breathing hotly onto his nose and mouth, his hand yanking Blaine's neat lapel up so high it almost tears off the blazer, and Blaine throws his hands up in defense, a sick feeling sweeping through his stomach—flashes of the first fight, his dream last night, that nightmare of three days in the hospital and nobody to turn to—but he leaves his hands open, to show he means no harm, but near his eyes, just in case.

He offers to buy Kurt lunch afterwards, interweaving their fingers again as they go to the car (but it's more to stop his own hands from shaking than for Kurt, to be honest). Kurt doesn't make a move to pull away.

They go to Breadstix. As they wait for food, Kurt talks, rapidly, and he doesn't stop. He explains everything, and a few times his eyes fill up with tears and he has to pause to bite them back.

"I'm the only out kid at my school," he says, folding and unfolding his napkin. He doesn't look at Blaine, but Blaine can see the saltwater welling in his eyes. "It's been horrible. It used to not be so bad, until this kid, until Dave came along. It's terrible, now." He shakes his head and uses his napkin—now folded up into a tiny little square—to dab the corners of his eyes.

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah." Kurt smiles ironically. "Me, too."

Blaine tries to return the smile, but he's afraid it comes across more like a sympathetic frown. "What have you done so far to handle it?"

"I've just told him to leave me alone, that's it. The one time I seriously confronted him was when he kissed me. That's when I came to talk to you."

Kurt's eyes seem to have rested on Blaine's lips, for a split second, like he's wondering if Blaine's ever been molested like that before.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," says Kurt absently, blinking away from Blaine's mouth and looking him in the eye.

"What have you done to _deal_ with it?"

"I told you, I confronted him—"

"No," says Blaine, clarifying. "What have you done for you—like, emotionally. When you go home every day. When you look at yourself in the mirror. When you dress yourself in the morning. When you talk to people. How does it affect you psychologically?"

Kurt doesn't answer for a second. "Heavy stuff, Blaine," he says after a moment, eyeing the other skeptically. "Why are you asking me this? Are you asking me if it makes me _sad_?"

Blaine blinks at him. He didn't really plan to ask Kurt to go into detail about the exact way the emotional trauma of being bullied makes him feel. But Blaine's never exactly had any other gay kids to talk to about this, either. He's tried, no doubt, but nobody he's had the opportunity to speak with has dealt with being bullied the way he has dealt with it. The cutting. There must be someone somewhere who has done it that way. He can't decide if he's asking Kurt to be that person or not.

"I just want to make sure you're handling this okay emotionally," he replies slowly, being careful not to offend Kurt any further. "A lot... a lot of kids have problems and... well, I don't want to put ideas into your head."

"Suicides, is that what you're talking about?" asks Kurt. Blaine pauses, and then nods.

Kurt's eyes go dark. "You don't have to worry about me. I won't get to that position. And before you think it's because I'm in love with myself or something, it's not. It's because I know I'm stronger than this. It hurts me now—being bullied, being hated for no good reason, being ostracized, being tortured and harassed—and don't get me wrong, I hate it. I hate my life more than anything." He takes a deep breath and looks back up at Blaine again, and Blaine can see that his eyes are alive like a fire. The energy there terrifies and amazes him. "But I'm stronger than they are. I just need to somehow have the courage to show it."

"Courage," says Blaine. It sounds like he's affirming Kurt's opinion, but really he just wants to taste the word on his lips.

They spend the rest of the lunch date getting to know each other. After Kurt has calmed down enough and talked through how he feels about Dave, Blaine learns about Kurt's family—his dad, who owns a tire shop and taught Kurt how to fix a car since Kurt could barely walk; his mother, who died when Kurt was eight; his step family, the Hudsons, with wonderful Carole who cannot replace his mother but does a good job anyways, and Finn, his step brother who still has a hard time sometimes understanding everything. Blaine learns about Rachel and Mercedes and about the rest of the Glee club. He and Kurt discuss musical numbers they've sang and their favorite Broadway musicals.

"When I was a kid I used to _love _Phantom," says Kurt dreamily, twirling his spaghetti. "I wanted to play Christine, just because I adored her story and was pretty much in love with Raoul. I'm still pretty sure he and I would have been flawless, singing 'All I Ask Of You' together on stage."

They laugh.

"Funny. I always liked Raoul, too," says Blaine. "He was my favorite character. Better than any of the Disney princes that my girl cousins liked."

"I don't know what you're talking about. The Beast was a dreamboat," Kurt jokes, smirking.

"Raoul is _infinitely _more noble," Blaine argues. "_And _he's a gentleman."

"Not unlike you," Kurt says. He smiles again, but this time it's much more coy. "You both seem to go to incredible lengths to help the vulnerable."

Blaine doesn't tell Kurt that he doesn't agree with this compliment. He just goes along with it instead, easily continuing the conversation and storing that bit of flattery to dwell on later. "Maybe _I_ should play _him_, then."

"Yes!" says Kurt excitedly. "Okay." He points at Blaine with his fork. "You be Raoul, I'll be Christine. We'll have an all-male production of Phantom. Well, not _all _male. Rachel would actually be perfect for the part of Carlotta."

"But who will play the Phantom?"

"We'll find someone. We need someone who captures his essence of being totally violent and totally forgivable at the same time."

"It's a work in progress," says Blaine, twirling some spaghetti and taking a bite. Talking with Kurt seems easy enough so that when they lapse into the silence that follows, nothing rubs either of them the wrong way. At least, Kurt seems completely at ease. They catch each other's eyes once or twice and neither of them can help themselves from grinning. The enigmatic feeling he got from Kurt at first has ebbed slightly, pulled away so that now it's only visible from a distance. Yet it's still there on the horizon of their relationship, like a buoy drifting farther away into invisibility but still disrupting the flat expanse of ocean. It tugs at the back of Blaine's mind, but he doesn't want to ruin this moment with Kurt, so instead they just continue to talk about their favorite characters and songs and plays and movies and enjoy each other's company.

It's only when Kurt gets up to leave that Blaine realizes why he gets such an awkward feeling around him. That painful mixture of sympathy and suspicion, care and caution. They're so different—and yet so similar.

"Thanks for this," Kurt says, smiling as they stand.

Blaine throws the tip on the table, watching him from beneath his heavy eyelashes. Kurt's face has gone incomparably soft around the edges, and his cheeks are flushed and his eyes are gentle.

"It means… it means a lot."

Blaine knows he's not just talking about paying for lunch, but Kurt continues anyways.

"Not everyone is so kind or understanding to gay kids. Especially not when they're"—he breathes deeply and rubs his eyebrows, like he's embarrassed of the sudden onset of tears welling in his eyes even when they just spent all that time talking away his griefs—"bullied as intensively as I have been. I've heard 'just man up' from more sources than I can count."

"Well I'm like you," says Blaine. "I'm gay. I was bullied. I get it."

A pause. Long enough only for each of their hearts to beat once.

"I guess that's why I'm saying 'thank you', then. For getting it."

They walk out to their cars in silence. Whey they turn to each other to say goodbye, Kurt grabs Blaine's hand suddenly and pulls it up, almost to his nose. Before Blaine knows what's happening, Kurt whips out a pen and begins to write something on the inside of Blaine's palm. It shocks him into immobility for a second, although Kurt doesn't realize it; Blaine's mouth goes dry and his body stiffens as he feels the pen press into his skin, causing all-too-familiar disruptions in the smooth surface. But when Kurt's finished writing, he drops Blaine's hand and sticks the pen back in his pocket and smiles.

"Bye Blaine," he says softly. "Or should I—" He clears his throat and sing-says: "_Think of me fondly when we've said goodbye._"

Blaine smiles, clenching the fist Kurt wrote on to keep himself calm. "Bye, Kurt."

And then Kurt climbs into his car, starts it, and pulls out of the parking space and drives to the exit of the lot. Blaine watches him drive away, back to his school where he has to endure another period and probably another experience of harassment. His palm tingles with the after effect of feeling a pen on it, like it hasn't in years, but his heart, though it pounds ferociously, is at ease with the experience of lunch and of making a new friend.

Remembering, Blaine tentatively uncurls his fingers to see what Kurt wrote in his hand

It's his number. And then, underneath it, another lyric from the song that he sang as goodbye—"_If you ever find a moment, spare a thought for me_." For a second, his heart skips one of it's rapid beats, and then slows down to normal speed, as if calmed by Kurt's want to keep in touch.

A half hour later he's still humming the tune as he pulls back up to Dalton, parks his car, and goes up to his dorm room. As he pulls his keys out of his pocket one of them barely grazes his wrist and he pushes back a sudden overwhelming urge to carve something into his arm like he would have ages ago, at a different school, at a different time in his life. He rarely gets these urges anymore, but this on top of Kurt's pen on top of being around Kurt all day and being reminded of his own weaknesses—he has to stop for a moment, be still, and breathe. He's okay. He's okay. He's okay.

He looks down at the scar on his wrist that the key brushed, and above it where, smearing in his palm, Kurt's neat scrawl offers up the promise of a friend.

He's okay.

That's about the time he hears someone talking on the other side of his door.

* * *

A/N: Cliffhanger, ooh.

Sort of a short chapter this time. Next chapter I PROMISE will be Actual Fight Club Stuff. This is intro stuff. You'll get fight club initiation with reviews and loves. (Or just reviews. Or when I have it written. Whatever comes immediately.)

EDIT: Okay, I added like, a whole section when Kurt and Blaine had lunch AND that elaborate Phantom metaphor. For those of you who don't know, Phantom of the Opera is a musical about a girl (Christine) who is taught how to sing by a "Phantom" who lives in and writes plays for an opera house. Raoul and Christine fall in love. "Think of Me" is the song from where the lyrics "think of me fondly when we say goodbye" and "if you ever find a moment, spare a thought for me" come from.

Okay, R&R!


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Long chapter ahead. But I'm trying to move this fic a little faster in terms of where Blaine gets into the fight club. It's just that I think there's so much development needed before hand. Sigh. #InvolvedFicWriterProblems.

Anyways, R&R!

* * *

**Chapter Four**

He forgets about Kurt, about cutting, about the Warblers, about everything, and strains his ears to hear the faint murmuring going on behind the door. He doesn't have a roommate; unless someone broke in, there's no reason that anyone should be in there. Had he forgotten to lock the door when he left in a hurry this morning? And he must have left his wallet and laptop in plain sight, too.

The thought of all his possessions being stolen sends him hurtling through the door. It bursts open and Blaine freezes with his legs spread shoulder width and his arms up by his face, like he's about to fight someone. But after a second he realizes that the room looks exactly the same, undisturbed except for a long, lanky boy lounging across the extra bed with a phone to his ear and a suitcase at his feet.

"—for my mother. Hold on, some crazy son of a bitch just burst into my room, I can't tell if he's my roommate or the local psychotic."

Blaine blinks at him, gradually lowering his hands. Embarrassed, he tries to control his breath, now suddenly aware that he's breathing hard.

"No," says the boy into the phone, eyeing him up and down, "he's too cute to be crazy. I think he's probably my roommate. Yeah man, I'll call you back. Tell Ashley I said hi—on second thought, tell her I said 'fuck you, whore.' She'll know why. Okay. Later."

The boy snaps his phone shut and stands up so swiftly Blaine doesn't even see him move. He sweeps the distance from the bed to where Blaine stands in three quick steps, and then he snatches one of Blaine's fists out of the air, uncurls it from it's ball, and kisses it on the back.

"Bonjour," he says, winking. "So are you going to tell me or should I ask? Psychotic or roommate?"

"Uh," Blaine replies.

"Roommate, then," the boy says, and he switches his grasp on Blaine's hand to a handshake. Blaine feels himself grip the boy's hand, although all he can do is gaze open-mouthed at his thin smirk and amber eyes, turned upward like a cat's. "I'm Sebastian Smythe, and I've just moved in."

"Oh," says Blaine numbly, his mind flashing to Kurt, although Kurt really wasn't an actual new kid. Still, the parallel of meeting two strangers in such strange ways in one day makes his brain reel. "Blaine Anderson."

"A pleasure, Mister Anderson. Please, sit and tell me what all this"—Sebastian gestures to the cleanly folded sheets on Blaine's bed, the symmetrically arranged posters and pictures on the walls, and the even numbered stacks of books and cups of pencils that occupy Blaine's side of the room—"has to do with an obviously psychologically damaged, yet adorable, boy like you."

"Uh," he says again.

"Talkative," says Sebastian, grinning. "Slow down, I don't know how I shall keep up."

"Who—when did you get here?" Blaine finally forces out. "I've been out all day. It's Friday so classes are light, but… they didn't tell me you were coming."

"By 'they' I assume you mean that _lovely _lady in the housing resources department up top." Sebastian rolls his eyes. "I'll tell you why she didn't warn you—she's a woman. They say they'll do one thing, then do the opposite, or else forget to do it entirely. But of course, I don't mean to offend you or your girlfriend, if you've got one."

"No," Blaine shakes his head and looks down, like he does every time he has to talk about his sexuality, "I don't have a girlfriend, I'm gay."

"Ah," Sebastian's grin grows wider. "Great."

There's an awkward silence during which Blaine tries to deduce whether or not Sebastian is naturally this uncommonly rude or if this was his weird way of flirting with him. But he can't read Sebastian at all; conversely, the other stands there with his hands in his pockets, in the center of the room—on his right, Blaine's dresser, bed, and desk in perfect order, and on his left, his bed sheets already slightly disheveled and his drawers half open—looking like he can see everything about Blaine from just his name and sexuality.

"So, roommate," he says, "What do you like to do for fun around here?"

ooo

A half hour later they're sitting in Warblers practice. Nick's auditioning for a solo, and everyone watches patiently—except Sebastian. He sits to Blaine's right, twirling a quarter on the coffee table beside the couch, looking bored out of his mind.

The only thing he's been able to draw from him during their walk down here has been that he transferred over from a public school in California. His family moved here because of his mother's job promotion. But other than that, Blaine has been able to learn nothing from this tall, cool, mysterious new kid. Except maybe that he's horribly fidgety.

Nick finishes his solo and everyone claps politely. Blaine gives him an approving nod and Nick flashes him a grin and looks like he's about to come over to him, but before Blaine can make verbal or physical contact, Sebastian has tugged his sleeve and forces him to the other side of the room. For a few fleeting moments, they sort of hold hands. Blaine thinks again about parallels with Kurt as Sebastian leads him into the same hallway that he ran through with the other.

"So, choir practice, huh?" says Sebastian, dropping Blaine's hand and leaning coolly against the large oak doors after they get out of the room. Warblers got dismissed at that moment anyways, but Blaine feels weird about leaving without the customary dismissal from Wes and David.

"Yeah," he says. "It's fun."

"Fun. Right." Sebastian smiles.

"You don't believe me."

"Oh no. I believe you. In fact, I _love _to sing. Want me to give you a little private serenading?"

"I could go without."

"Snappy, Anderson. Don't want your nice-boy image to shatter too much, do you?"

Blaine blinks at him for what seems like the millionth time in the past hour that he's known him. "I literally have no idea what you're talking about."

"Sure you do." Sebastian hops off the wall and leans in toward Blaine, who holds his ground. "You pretend you're a good, orderly, sweet kid, but let's face it. You're bored."

"I'm happy."

"You're settling."

"Blaine!"

It's as if Nick calling his name shocks him into the real world. The hallway suddenly becomes alive—or, rather, Blaine suddenly realizes that there are other people in there, and that they're moving, and making noise, and it isn't just him and Sebastian anymore.

"Y-yeah?" Blaine says. It takes him a few moments to blink away from Sebastian's face and look at Nick, who has appeared by his shoulder. Nick's taller than Blaine but shorter and stockier than Sebastian, who leans back against the door again, thin and effortless, like a leaf. Blaine thinks that the wind of one wrong move might even blow him away.

"Are we going to go study for AP U.S.?" Nick asks. He looks back at Sebastian. "You said you wanted to work with me and Jeff on the outlines."

"Yeah. Yeah we are, just… let me get Sebastian back upstairs to his room. I'll meet you there."

Nick nods at Blaine, bobbing away after a second side-eye at Sebastian. The other remains motionless, knowing smirk stuck in place.

"What are you trying to do here?" Blaine hisses as soon as Nick is out of earshot. The rest of the Warblers shuffle past him but he avoids making eye contact so that he doesn't have to suffer a similar reaction from them as Nick had—and he's almost positive that at the next Warblers meeting he's going to be bombarded for an explanation. "You can't just show up, claim to be my roommate, and then embarrass me at Warblers practice. I brought you here because you asked what I did for fun. That means you play along, with _my rules_. Yes, California, there are rules here."

"I never pegged you as a stickler for the way things should be. I thought you liked freedom."

"_You 'never'_—like you've known me for something more than an hour or something."

"I have known you for more than an hour," snaps Sebastian, kicking off the door. He's back in Blaine's personal space again but this time Blaine steps back, his hands coming up to grip the strap on his bag. He doesn't want to put his fists up, because that would be threatening and dangerous and they're in a _hallway_ for God's sake. But Sebastian's giving him a vibe that makes him want to protect himself. "I've known you your whole life Blaine."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Let me guess, you were bullied, right?" Sebastian's voice is a whisper. He's looking directly at Blaine's eyes and has bent over slightly so that they're at the same eye level. Somehow this is worse than him towering over him; it's like he's treating him like a child. "Probably pretty badly. You either cut or wrote sad poetry to relieve the pain—or both. You also probably have a family that hates you or damn near that. And so you transferred to a private school filled with tolerant boys in uniforms, and you put on your own blazer and you joined a club and you followed the rules because all you've ever wanted to do is blend in, be part of the crowd. But I bet you get a shitload of vertigo from being on that stage when you perform for the Warblers, because let's be honest, Anderson."

He moves away from him, standing up straight and clinking a key in his pocket, as if just the noise shattering the quiet of the now-empty hallway is enough imperfection to seal his point.

"You _love_ disrupting the pattern."

With that, he turns on his heel towards the door. "I can find my way to our room myself. Go to your study session. You don't want to let the guys down." He grins over his shoulder as he exits, leaving Blaine standing there, heart thumping and brain reeling, trying for the second time in the past hour and a half whether or not Sebastian likes him, hates him, or just gets some sort of sick pleasure in throwing him for the biggest loops possible.

ooo

It's almost an hour later when Blaine finally goes to the study session. At first he tries to follow Sebastian back to their room, but when he gets there it's empty. There's the possibility that Sebastian got lost, but somehow he doesn't think that's what happened. Then he collects his books, organizing and reorganizing his class folder so many times the labels start to swim in front of his eyes. He walks slowly, hoping to run into Sebastian somewhere so that he can—so that he can what? Tell him off? Hit him? Both sound equally as ludicrous.

When he strolls in to Nick and Jeff's room, Jeff is spread out on his bed and Nick is spinning on one of the desk chairs. Someone's sitting in the corner with his head underneath a pillow moaning quietly.

"Way to finally show up," says Jeff, peeking up from his textbook. "We're on the Civil War and Trent can't remember when the Emancipation Proclamation was signed."

"I will never pass this class," moans the face beneath the pillow.

"It's okay, they probably don't have specific date questions like that on the test anyways," says Blaine, setting his bag down on the other desk and opening it up to get his stuff out.

"So," says Nick, eyeing him up and down. His book is open on his lap, but it's very clear that he's not going to be looking at it until Blaine explains something to him.

"So?"

"So the new kid. Looked like you two had something of a row outside the practice room today. Who is he, anyways?"

"His name's Sebastian. He's my new roommate."

"You didn't tell us you were getting a new roommate."

"I didn't know." Blaine shrugs. "He just turned up this afternoon when I got home from helping out that Kurt kid who showed up to the performance this morning."

"Wasn't _he_ a new kid?" Jeff asks. Trent has peeked half his face from beneath the pillow in interest.

"No, he was pretending to be though. Wes and David and I talked to him about it and figured out that he was just… he's gay and he's been bullied. I went to his school—he goes to McKinley, the one we're facing at Regionals—so I went to see what I could do, but the guy who's bullying him is so far in the closet himself that nothing's going to get done soon."

"So what was he doing here?" Trent asks, taking the pillow all the way off his head and running a hand through his hair to fix it.

Blaine shrugs again and looks between all three of them. Nick's still staring at him skeptically, and although the other two have moved on to talk about Kurt, Blaine figures he's going to get a full-blown interrogation from Nick about Sebastian later.

"He needs a safe place to be and he heard about us so he came here, I guess. He sounded pretty brave when he talked me through it at lunch, though. He's the only out kid at his school. All he needs is somewhere safe, now."

Jeff smiles.

"Sounds a little bit like you, Blaine."

"No," says Blaine, shaking his head as he finally gets out his papers and riffles through them until he finds the Civil War outline. "I'm nothing like Kurt."

Kurt, fabulous Kurt, brave Kurt, fierce Kurt—Kurt who unabashedly wore fashionable clothing to school instead of the ritual "masculine" jeans and t-shirts, Kurt who bore the weight of years and years of bullying all throughout high school, Kurt who tore apart obstacles, Kurt who was never defeated until he met this brick wall of a boy and had to finally seek help, Kurt who went back to brave a bigoted public school, Kurt who seemed so alike Blaine and yet so much better than him in every way.

"I'm not that brave. I just want to blend in."

They drop the subject and actually start to get some studying done. Jeff manages to memorize every important Union army general's name and recite them in under forty seconds. Trent finally nails when the Emancipation Proclamation was signed and all of it's key points. But now all Blaine can think about is him and Kurt, their similarities and their differences, and how Blaine felt from the moment he saw him that itchy, self-conscious feeling, like he was watching himself on camera.

Maybe they are the same, but in admitting that, Blaine has to admit that what Sebastian says is true—he hates rules, and being part of a crowd. He doesn't want to blend in; he wants to stand out. He wants to be special. He wants to be himself. He wants to be brave.

As Nick and Trent and Jeff quiz each other on the events that led up to the Civil War, Blaine takes a pen—a regular blue, ballpoint pen—and draws the word carefully in capital letters, right above the scar on his left wrist.

ooo

When he gets back to his dorm that night, Sebastian's lounging on his bed again, throwing a lacrosse ball into the air and catching it repeatedly. Although Blaine makes a point to stand in the doorway for a few heated seconds, giving him a contemptuous once over, Sebastian continues to toss the ball, the tweaking corner of his lips his only indication of noticing Blaine at all.

Blaine throws his bag onto his bed and goes to his dresser to change into sweats. He's semiconscious of the fact that each move he makes is deliberate and angry, and he wants nothing more than to take the goddamn ball away from Sebastian because he can't stand the rhythmic patting sound it makes each time it hits his palm. But he undresses and redresses quickly, slamming his closet doors closed too hard and then throwing himself on his bed. He's about to turn off his bedside lamp when Sebastian looks over at him and grins.

"Rough day?"

"You would know."

"Look," Sebastian sighs and sits up. His blazer is open and the first few buttons of his polo are undone. There's no sign of his tie. "I'm sorry if what I said hurt you, but that's no reason to dismiss it as the truth."

"How do you know it's the truth?" Blaine challenges. "You don't know anything about me."

"The fact that this is bothering you this much shows that I know a _lot_ about you."

Blaine shakes his head and puts his hand back on the lamp switch, plunging them into darkness. It's a moment of silence before Blaine realizes he didn't brush his teeth or wash his face. He feels grimy suddenly, but getting up now would mean sacrificing the presence he just struck by turning off the lamp and silencing conversation.

"I didn't say all that to be mean, you know."

So much for silencing conversation.

"Then why did you say it?" Blaine asks of the darkness.

"I said it because it's true," Sebastian's disembodied voice answers him.

"You keep saying things are 'true'—as if just because you say them out loud they _are _true. What does that mean? Who the hell are you? You just showed up today and… and I've known you for maybe five hours and you've already made me feel like crap. What right have you got to do that to me?"

"You just don't like it that I'm correct, do you Blaine?" There's a rustling of bedsheets, a thunk of shoes hitting the floor, and then silence. "Someone saw through you and now you're scared of it."

"I'm not scared."

"Of course you are, Blaine. That's why you keep running away."

That's the last thing either of them say. Blaine lets it roll around in his head, chew it over as he licks his teeth and lips and tries to wipe the day off of his face with his palms (probably accidentally smearing Kurt's number all over his cheeks). Eventually he drifts off to sleep and dreams of Kurt and the bully at his school who shoved him against the fence, only now it's Sebastian, and he's grinning maniacally and Blaine gets an overwhelming sense of the urge to just—just hit him. Get him off of him. Roll him to the ground and beat him until he's bloody—until _his_ fist is the one covered in blood instead of the other way around.

The last clear image he has is of Kurt's face, horrified, before he jerks into consciousness.

He must have slept for a long time, although it feels like it's been mere minutes; sun streams through the window and Sebastian's across the room finishing unpacking his suitcase into the previously empty dresser.

"Morning sleepyhead," he says, grinning. With that tone of voice, he might as well be an entirely different person. "Nightmare?"

Blaine blinks away the sunlight, rubbing his eyes to adjust them.

"A—a bit, yeah."

"Who's Kurt?"

"Just this—what?"

"You said his name towards the end. Not your boyfriend, right?"

"Not my boyfriend," Blaine says firmly, sliding out of bed and over to his dresser, where he grabs clothes and a towel so he can go shower and dress. When he comes back, fresh and in a clean pair of jeans and a t-shirt, he finally looks at his cell phone for the time. 11:30. He slept later than he thought.

By this time Sebastian's done unpacking and is pulling on some socks and shoes.

"What are you doing today?" he asks him. His voice is much gentler than it was before; perhaps he's trying to make up for their rough start yesterday.

"Homework," Blaine grunts, watching himself carefully sculpt his hair in the mirror above his bedside table.

"As usual I bet."

Blaine has to close his eyes and take a deep breath through his nose to stop himself from glaring at Sebastian. He'll never get used to having him as a roommate and if this doesn't stop he's going to make damn sure he doesn't have to deal with him ever again. He'll even hunt down the lady in the housing resources department if he has to.

Fortunately, Sebastian notices this little pause and his face splits into a grin. "Sorry," he says. "I'll stop trying to get to know you like that. Tell you what—why don't I take you out tonight to apologize?"

Taken aback, Blaine says, "Okay" before he's fully realized what he's agreed to. Sebastian widens his grin.

"Excellent," he says, and he finishes lacing up his shoes, which Blaine just now notices are cleats. Sebastian pockets the lacrosse ball he was playing with last night, grabs a stick that Blaine just now realizes must have been sitting in the corner the entire time, and heads to the door. "I'll pick you up at eight. Wear something pretty."

Blaine watches him go, aghast, hair gel drying in his palms. When he comes to his senses he realizes that there's nothing left to do for this day except to wait and… well, do homework, like he said he was going to.

Although he dressed and did his hair, he stays inside mostly, going over the Civil War outlines that he, Jeff, Nick, and Trent worked on yesterday. He's been so distracted for the past two days that he hasn't been able to get any work done, and it's still showing: he reads, rewrites, and recites the outlines, but nothing seems to stick. Occasionally he takes a break and wastes time on facebook. Sometimes he runs pens over the soft flesh of his wrist and inner forearm before he's shocked back into reality and he remembers that he doesn't do that stuff anymore. And it's back to reading, rewriting, and reciting.

It's 7:49 when Sebastian comes strolling back in. Blaine expects to see him sweaty, disheveled, and exhausted from lacrosse, but instead he looks crisp and alert in black pants and a red long sleeve shirt that brings out the amber in his eyes and hair. Over his shoulder he has a black jacket slung and, beneath that, a bag that must be carrying all of his lacrosse gear.

"I'm assuming tryouts went well then?" Blaine asks, looking him up and down again. Sebastian sees this and grins, dropping his gear in the corner.

"Went great. I made the team, of course." He turns to look at Blaine. "We're going out in ten minutes and you haven't changed at all," he pouts, "I told you to wear something pretty."

"Sorry, are bow ties too masculine for you?"

"Actually, come to think of it, they're perfect. Small and adorable—sort of like you."

Blaine wishes Sebastian would wipe that stupid smile off his face. He doesn't say anything for the next few minutes as he puts his homework away and locates his wallet and keys. When he's got his shoes on he looks back at Sebastian, who's been fixing his hair in their shared mirror.

Sebastian grins. "Ready?"

Oh, god.

"Ready."

ooo

Where they go is not what Blaine expects at all.

"Here's your ID," says Sebastian. "But don't worry, I know Harry, the bouncer. He lets just about anyone in, he gets it, you know? The teen gay desperate for a place to fit in, thing. You have that down perfectly with the bow tie."

"It says I'm from Hawaii," says Blaine, eyeing a suspicious looking fake ID that Sebastian just shoved into his hands. "And thirty."

"You look very mature for your age," Sebastian nods. "And Hawaiian."

They approach the bouncer, who stands beneath the large neon sign that burns the word "SCANDALS" into Blaine's eyeballs each time he looks at it. The bouncer—Harry—is a huge, burly man dressed entirely in black, but made significantly less threatening by the feather boa around his neck. He takes both of their ID's and—Sebastian's right—barely even looks at them before opening the door.

It's hot inside—really hot, and really crowded. Men and boys line the bars, occupy the tables, and stroll around the dance floor, upon which plenty of people groove to the music put on by the DJ in the corner. Sebastian has disappeared to get drinks, so Blaine stands awkwardly just inside the door, peering around at everyone. Sixteen years old and he's already in his first gay bar—pretending to be a thirty year old man from Hawaii. He hopes to God that nothing happens tonight that requires him to reveal this to his parents. They'd have him back in public school in a heartbeat.

When Sebastian returns, he's holding two cold beers. "For you," he grins, holding one out to Blaine. Blaine doesn't want to say that he's never had alcohol before, so he takes a swig as if he knows what he's doing, and ends up trying to swallow too much at once. It tastes like shit, just like everyone always said.

They try to find a place to sit and end up in a rickety table in the corner that looks like it's on its last leg—literally. It only has one leg and the rest of it is glued haphazardly to the wall with a chair on either side, like a propped-up fold-out ironing board. As Sebastian surveys the crowd and hums in time to the music, Blaine sips his beer, unable to decide if he's getting to like it or just getting used to it.

"First time at a bar, huh?" Sebastian asks. "Didn't mean to culture shock you. But really. You didn't think you were the only gay kid in all of Ohio, did you?"

"No," Blaine says seriously.

"Loosen up, Anderson. You sound like you're being interrogated. I'm just _asking_."

"I know," Blaine replies dumbly. He looks back down at his beer and wipes some of the condensation off of the bottle. When he looks back up at Sebastian, he's getting up and holding out his hand.

"Want to dance?"

"I don't know how."

"Doesn't matter. We'll learn together."

"I'm pretty sure you already know how to dance."

Another famous grin from Sebastian. "Look who thinks they know everything _now_." And he grabs Blaine's hand and yanks him up and onto the floor before he can worry about leaving their beers unattended.

From the side of the dance floor, Blaine didn't hear the music like he does now. Now he hears it much louder, fuller, and with his whole body instead of just his ears; it pounds through him like an earthquake, ricocheting off his insides and making him feel like an echo of everyone around him, barely there as he gets pushed from side to side by bodies that just want him to dance in time.

Sebastian grabs his hands and puts them on his shoulders, taking Blaine's hips under his fingers. He forces them to sway, and Blaine feels awkward, strange, and a little more like he'd rather go sit back and drink the horrible tasting beer than be out here on the floor with Sebastian. But the latter starts to make Blaine move and Blaine feels a sick, swooping feeling in his stomach; people surround him and press in towards him on all sides, he can't breathe, he can't think—the lights are blinding, the music's deafening, and he has got to get out of there.

The next motion is a flurry of hands and various movements by his neck that he thinks might be an attempt at shaking his head to let Sebastian know he's not comfortable with this. He's not sure what about the situation disturbs him so much—perhaps it's being so close with everyone. There were at least five people touching him at all times. It reminds him too much of his weaknesses, being that close to that many people. He can dance in group numbers, but freeform dancing in this mountain of bodies makes his head spin.

After forcing his way out of the crowd, he hastily locates the back door and walks as fast as he can towards it, his breath cutting sharply in his throat. It feels clogged—he coughs into his hand. Just spit; no blood.

When he gets outside, the fresh air is a blessed relief. He sinks down the side of the building and onto the concrete of the sidewalk, rubbing his head in his hands. He's slowly de-gelling his hair, but it doesn't matter; all he can think to do is breathe deeply the crisp, cold 9:30 pm air and try to figure out what happened to him in there.

The door to his left creaks open and there stands Sebastian, looking partly angry and partly pitiful, like he's torn between saying something omniscient and pretentious again. After a moment he settles on, "Sorry, I didn't know you really hated dancing."

"It's not that," Blaine says, shaking his head. Sebastian moves to stand in front of him and holds out his hand. Blaine takes it and Sebastian pulls him to his feet. "I just get nervous in crowds. I got in a pretty big fight last year and the close pressure… scares me I guess."

"_You_ got in a _fight_?"

"More or less," says Blaine miserably. "I got beat up."

"Mmhm," Sebastian hums, scratching his chin thoughtfully. Then, without warning, he bends over at the waist and puts his hands on his upper thighs, so that his head is about the level of Blaine's neck. Blaine has to step backwards to avoid having Sebastian's chin collide with his shoulder.

"Okay. Hit me."

"What?" Blaine stares at him, astonished. "I'm not going to hit you. I don't like violence."

"Sure you do," Sebastian says, grinding his teeth into a fanged smile that glows in the half-light. "It's written all over you, practically in pen. You crave this."

He looks down at his arms and pictures them covered in inky spider webs.

"I don't. That doesn't even make any sense."

"Come on, Anderson. The same instinct you thought had been telling you to run this whole time has actually been telling you to fight, I guarantee it."

"You don't know what you're on about."

But Blaine curls his fingers into a fist, feeling the weight of sixteen years' abuse in his palm. He doesn't want to hit Sebastian, but maybe he does want to hit something. In fact, he's wanted to hit something for a while. He's wanted to hit something since he started getting pushed into lockers. He's wanted to hit something since he saw his dad's disappointed nose crinkle over the newspaper when he came home with pen streaks up and down his arms. He's wanted to hit something since he was forced to pull it all together for the sake of everyone else's comfort. He's wanted to hit something since he learned how to smile, because on that day he realized he would never be allowed to break down in front of anyone ever again. He's wanted to hit something since the first time he _got_ hit.

Maybe it makes a little sense, after all.

"Stop arguing," Sebastian says through his teeth, "and _hit me_."

So, hurling his right fist at Sebastian's cheekbone, Blaine hits him.

What actually happens is that he undershoots just barely and hits Sebastian partially in the jaw and partially in the neck, sending him stumbling to the side, holding his mouth and howling. In a second, however, he's steadied himself and punches Blaine square in the stomach before Blaine even knows what's happening.

As he doubles over and faces the gravel, he's in a dark alley way again and there are three, four, five boys on him, and he's getting kicked in the gut, and he's spitting up a tooth, and he's wondering where his date is, where his dad is, where his brother is, where anyone is.

"Don't you _want_ this, Blaine? Defend yourself!" Sebastian says. Shrieks. Something. Blaine can't hear for the pounding in his ears. "Come on, hit me ag—"

He doesn't let him get the word out; he has a fist buried in Sebastian's mouth, the other gripping his shoulder so he can't stumble away this time. And Sebastian's laughing, cackling even, his pretty face already bruising, ugly and purple-brown in the flickering light outside the bar. It's a maniacal sound. Blaine can't decide if he loves it or hates it.

They punch each other for several more minutes and when they're done, Sebastian goes back into the bar to get them their beers.

Now miraculously able to ignore the terrible taste, Blaine takes a sip of his, feeling invincible and breathless and calm all at once. The cold November air tries to touch him, but it can't.

"How do you feel?" says Sebastian, after they both take a moment to watch the streetlamp flicker.

"Like I'm in Fight Club," Blaine says. "You know, the movie? You said 'hit me,' like Tyler did."

"I like Tyler," says Sebastian, setting his beer down in between them and wringing his wrists. Blaine knows why: his own hurt, too. They're not used to having to knock punches around and deal with the strain, since the last time Blaine boxed was over the summer, and it was just for a little recreational self-defense, nothing serious. Still, Blaine thinks as he watches Sebastian press each of his fists into the opposite palm a few times, nothing ever gets used to pressure unless it's continually applied.

"We're a little bit the same, he and I."

"Tyler's the _bad guy_," says Blaine. "You're no Tyler."

"You don't know how bad I can be, Anderson."

"Anyways," Blaine deflects, "That's like saying you're the main guy, the narrator, anyways. They're the same person in the end."

"Tyler and the narrator are the same person like apples and oranges are the same fruit," Sebastian snorts. "He had multiple personality disorder, he didn't just call himself a different name for kicks. Tyler was another person living inside him. A soul inside a soul. I'm like that. The soul inside everyone else that they don't want to see."

A few cars pass by. Boys drive and their girlfriends sit in the front seat with the windows down even though it's cold, letting the wind ruin their hair. Blaine doesn't much care for the wind but on a night like tonight he doesn't much care about anything except the pounding in his temples, fists, and newly forming bruises.

"So what do we do next?"

Sebastian drinks. "You could punch me again."

Looking at him out of the side of his eyes, Blaine sees that the bruises on his jawbone and left eye are purpled now, the exact shape of his own fist. In the streetlamp, they look grotesque and golden around the edges, swelling a little bit so that Sebastian's normally thin face is blotchy in places.

"Nah," he laughs, "Your pretty face is fucked up already."

"Blaine Anderson, look at _you_. You've barely had half a beer and your first real fight and you're _already_ cursing like a sailor. You're growing up so fast."

"You don't know anything about me growing up."

He says it like a joke. Sebastian takes it like a joke. But on a level that they haven't yet reached, they both know it's not.

"Okay, so you're not going to punch me. You could always kiss me instead."

Blaine looks at him again, and this time they hold eye contact. Sebastian's grinning from ear to ear, which must hurt as the whole left side of his face is a mess. Blaine can feel his own mouth tweaking into a smile although he tries not to let it. The effort it takes to hold his lips in place is overwhelming and lets him know that his own face has probably started to look pretty mutilated, too.

The tension is broken when he looks away. "Nice try."

"Worth a shot. Better luck next time, I guess."

"Yeah, don't hold your breath."

They drink.

"So now I guess you know," Sebastian says, like he's letting out that breath Blaine told him not to hold.

Blaine shakes his head. "Now I know what?"

They look at each other again, Sebastian from through his eyelashes. His face is swollen but he still pulls off a gaze that is one part alluring, one part dangerous.

"Now you know what we do next."

* * *

A/N: And viola, fight club action. Review for more.


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